Herpes Incidence Still On Increase

July 20, 1986|By DIANE HUBBARD BURNS, The Orlando Sentinel

Herpes was the sexual scourge of the `80s until AIDS came along. At the turn of the decade, alarm about the spread of herpes was expected to quell the sexual revolution. Then the discomfort and embarrassment of genital herpes took a back seat to the deadly consequences of AIDS, and herpes was almost forgotten by all but its sufferers.

``People who have just caught it say, `Hey, I thought this wasn`t around anymore,` `` said Katy Babcock, assistant director of the Herpes Resource Center in Palo Alto, Calif. ``They are afraid there isn`t any research going on anymore because they haven`t heard about it.``

Herpes is still around, however, and it is spreading rapidly. The estimated number of physician-patient consultations about herpes doubled between 1980 and 1984. In that year the figure exceeded 450,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. As many as 20 million Americans may now have symptoms of the disease, which causes periodic eruptions of painful blisters or lesions in the genital area or on the buttocks or upper thighs.

In addition, recent blood tests from a national sampling of adults across the country suggest that many more -- perhaps a quarter of all adults -- have antibodies indicating the presence of the virus even though they may never manifest herpes symptoms. These people are presumed capable of transmitting the virus.

Even as the number of cases has increased, a prescription drug that helps control the virus` symptoms has become available. Early last year the federal Food and Drug Administration approved a capsule form of the drug, acyclovir. Pharmacists have filled more than a million prescriptions for the drug, manufactured by Burroughs Wellcome Co. under the brand name Zovirax.

In a promotional campaign unusual for a prescription drug, Burroughs in June began running a series of full-page ads in national magazines ranging from People to Playboy. The ads do not mention the medicine by name, but they do tell readers that herpes can be treated.

``The intent is to encourage people with herpes to visit their physician,`` said Kathy Bartlett, a Burroughs spokeswoman. Many herpes sufferers, she said, may not be seeking help for herpes ``because it had a reputation for being an untreatable, incurable disease.``

``It`s hard for us to know how many people have herpes, much less how fast it`s being spread,`` said Dr. Katherine Stone with the Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control. Numbers are hard to come by because physicians are not required to report diagnoses of herpes cases to the government as they are with more serious sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea and AIDS.

Herpes may go into hiding for months at a time, and outbreaks of the blisters and lesions occur when the virus travels back down nerve fibers from the spine, where it resides. It is very contagious during these outbreaks. Documented cases have shown that the virus also can be contagious when there is no apparent outbreak.

Stone said that despite publicity and widespread awareness of herpes` contagiousness, studies show it is being spread by people who know they are having an outbreak but do not tell their sexual partners. ``It`s frightening to think people are still having sex when they are having an outbreak,`` Stone said.

Development of a herpes cure or vaccine is still a long way off. Meanwhile, daily treatment with acyclovir is expensive. A 20- to 25-day supply of the drug costs about $50.

Acyclovir acts to suppress outbreaks of the virus when taken continuously, or it can shorten outbreaks and lessen symptoms when taken during an outbreak. A topical form of the drug, approved before the capsules, also helps to shorten outbreaks and promote healing.